When Do We Get To Start Asking Questions?

Response to Covid-19 has been VERY swift.

For the most part, people are being civilized, getting some essentials and are staying at home.

We are being compliant. Martial law is not upon us. Yet.

How long will this last?

How long will restaurant owners, musicians, actors, small businesses and other people without a true net or insurance or a roof over their head ‘be calm and carry on’? How will they self-isolate when they don’t have a home? What rules have we brought about to prevent poachers from manipulating this situation at the expense of people’s lives and passions?

How many politicians are offering to take a pay cut from secure sources of income in order to show that they are willing to do their share as well?

How many billionaires are doing the right thing by taking their mammoth loads of cash out of the bank and spending it on urgently needed research and development for treatment of Covid-19 and/or distribution and care centres for the elderly? How many billionaires are doing the right thing and donating masks or testing kits (Jack Ma of Alibaba is doing it – why aren’t you?) and taking pay cuts to ensure that those most in need of a weekly pay cheque are getting one? Like the basketball players are? Where are the owners of these basketball and hockey teams and why aren’t they stepping up in a similar way?

How many money lenders are going to continue to reap the benefits of a global financial collapse, including more bailouts for billionaires? Shouldn’t all interest rates be zero ‘until further notice’ or for the ‘indefinite future’ so that governments can implement action plans without penalty to their credit rating?

If everything is closed, how will stores stay stocked with the things we need … in addition to just toilet paper?

Who’s reassuring us that the lights will be kept on and electricity and internet services will keep flowing so we can at least say hi to our family members and friends?

I’m a little concerned.

I know and acknowledge that many politicians are scrambling to even catch up to this situation. It is unprecedented in the history of humanity.

That said, we urgently need a real plan to support the hundreds of thousands of people that (sorry to stereotype) live cheque-to-cheque without the means to save for a ‘rainy day’.

What real social networks (not just Facebook or Twitter) exist to help neighbours check in on each other to ensure that everyone is OK? Or are we just going watch our neighbours die (or worse, get robbed or attacked) while we sit in mind-numbing calmness at home?

I’m really not trying to provoke things, but I think we’re entitled to ask a few questions about any kind of plan that our various levels of governments have to prevent complete and utter chaos over the coming weeks.

I’ve had a couple of tech friends joke that they want to uninstall 2020 or reboot the year.

I call for a new operating system.

The one we’ve got is only proving that idiots float to the top and madmen are the first in line to buy some fucking toilet paper, shoving old people out of the way.

Is this what we’re really all about?